Best practices for retiring 100s of blog posts?
-
Hi. I wanted to get best practices for retiring an enterprise blog with hundreds of old posts with subject matter that won't be repurposed. What would be the best course of action to retire and maintain the value of any SEO authority from those old blog pages?
Is it enough to move those old posts into an archive subdirectory and Google would deprioritize those posts over time?
Or would a mass redirect of old blog posts to the new blog's home page be allowed (even though the old blog post content isn't being specifically replaced)? Or would Google basically say that if there aren't 1:1 replacement URLs, that would be seen as soft-404s and treated like a 404?
-
Retiring a large number of blog posts can be a significant task, and it's important to handle it thoughtfully to maintain the integrity of your website and its content. Here are some best practices for retiring hundreds of blog posts:
1. Assessment and Planning:
- Evaluate each blog post individually to determine its relevance, traffic, and importance.
2. Communication:** - Inform your audience about the changes in advance. Create a blog post or announcement explaining the decision to retire certain content.
3.Maintain SEO: - Update your sitemap to reflect the changes.
4.Content Audit:
Use the retirement as an opportunity to conduct a broader content audit. Assess the overall quality and relevance of your remaining content.
5. Learn from Analytics: - Analyze website analytics to understand the impact of retiring specific posts on traffic and user engagement.
- Evaluate each blog post individually to determine its relevance, traffic, and importance.
-
Best Practices for Retiring Hundreds of Blogs
Are you contemplating retiring hundreds of old blog posts? It's a significant decision, but fear not! Here are the best practices for a smooth transition.
Content Audit: Analyze traffic, engagement, and relevance to identify which posts to retire. Preserve high-performing and evergreen content for repurposing.
301 Redirects: Redirect retired blog URLs to related or updated content using 301 redirects. This preserves SEO value and prevents broken links.
Inform Your Audience: Notify your readers in advance about the changes. Explain why certain posts are being retired and assure them of fresh, valuable content to come.
Archiving: Consider archiving the retired posts on your website for reference purposes. This maintains historical context and might still attract occasional visits.
Promotion of New Content: Emphasize your latest and most relevant content. Utilize newsletters, social media, and email campaigns to highlight new posts and offerings.
Monitor Analytics: Keep a close eye on post-retirement metrics to gauge the impact on traffic and user behavior. Adjust your strategy as needed.
Remember, retiring old blogs opens up opportunities for fresh, engaging content that resonates with your audience. Embrace the change and watch your website flourish!
P.S. Explore Hamzastore.pk for unique and trendy 3D wall clocks Add a touch of style to your space with our premium collection.
-
Redirecting them in bulk might cause some loss of equity yes - are any of them particularly noteworthy or well linked to? Perhaps just those ones could be left up.
That said, if you have the option to leave these posts live on an archived subdirectory, why is it that you want to take them down at all? Usually the answer would be because they are duplicate or thin content, but clearly that is not the case.
-
@David_Fisher When retiring an old enterprise blog with many outdated posts, simply archiving them in a subdirectory may not be enough to prevent Google from indexing them. Redirecting all the old posts to the new blog's homepage without any relevant content could be seen as a soft-404 by Google.
The best approach would be to repurpose or update any relevant posts for the new blog and redirect only those specific posts. For the rest, create a custom 404 page that provides links to the new blog's homepage and other relevant content. This approach ensures a positive user experience and maintains SEO authority.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Unsolved Broken external links
Hi, Does Moz report on broken links to external sites? I've only seen the crawl return broken links relating to internal links. Any info much appreciated. Thanks, Mary
Moz Tools | | rj_dale0 -
Premium domain name redirects
Hi, I run a tree surgery business - woodfeldertreecare.co.uk We're based in Manchester, UK. A few days ago I was called by Premium Domain Names who convinced me that buying treesurgeonsmanchester.com and treesurgerymanchester.com and redirecting them to our main site would be amazing for organic traffic. My designer and an SEO friend both reckon this was a waste of money and reckon I've been scammed. Any thoughts? Please help.
SEO Tactics | | LeoTrees0 -
Google Search Console Showing 404 errors for product pages not in sitemap?
We have some products with url changes over the past several months. Google is showing these as having 404 errors even though they are not in sitemap (sitemap shows the correct NEW url). Is this expected? Will these errors eventually go away/stop being monitored by Google?
Technical SEO | | woshea0 -
Old Blogs
We have several blogs on our site for a range of products we no longer stock. Would you set up a redirect for these - and how long would you keep it in place?
Technical SEO | | Caroline_Ardmoor0 -
Should I keep my existing site or start new?
I have a website with less than 3K visits a year. Only customers with an Account with me who have login credentials can see my product pricing and make a purchase onsite; therefore, indexing/page ranking is not a concern for me. My agency suggests that my product catalog be corrected to a parent/child relationship. Currently, each product variation has its own SKU and PDP. As a result, product findability: Site Search, Categorization, and Facets are a mess. Is there any way I can keep my current URL (branding purposes)? I thought we could delete all pages (PLPs & PDPs) and create all new and enforce 301 redirects. Thoughts?
Community | | SEOfreshman0 -
My Blog Post Not Appearing In Top - Covered every aspect of the topic
Hello Moz Team, hope everyone is doing well, I have question regarding mine blog post recently that I published: https://mobilemall.pk/blog/definition-of-cuboid-surface-area-volume-basic-properties/ My target keywords in this post are Cuboid Definition, Cuboid Surface Area, Cuboid Volume. I have considered and applied every good SEO practice, like H Tags, gave links to authority sites, featured image, other images, etc but my post is still not appearing in top 3, 5 or even 10 I have covered each and every aspect of the topic, Can anyone let me know what's the reason and any suggestion for me. Thanks!
Content Development | | JoeySolicitor1 -
Blogger relationship - One Off VS periodic monthly blogging (which is best)
Good day all, I am interested in building relationships with my bloggers (i.e...people that are interested in my website and blog about it regularly). I would also propose to them the idea of blogging about our page regularly, perhaps recurring monthly. If the strategy is in place, could receiving links from the same bloggers each month cause any negative SEO effects? Thanks for your input.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 90miLLA0 -
Problems with link spam from spam blogs to competitor sites
A competitor of ours is having a great deal of success with links from spam blogs (such as: publicexperience.com or sexylizard.org) it is proving to be a nightmare. Google does not detect these (the competitor has been doing well now for over a year) and my boss is starting to think if you can’t beat them, join them. Frankly, he is right – we have built some great links but it is nigh on impossible to beat 400+ highly targeted spam links in a niche market. My question is, has anyone had success in getting this sort of stuff brought to the attention of Google and banned (I actually listed them all in a message in webmaster tools and sent them over to Google over a year ago!). This is frustrating, I do not want to join in this kind of rubbish but it is hard to put a convincing argument against it when our competitor has used the technique successfully for over a year without any penalty. Ideas? Thoughts? All help appreciated
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RodneyRiley0